The internet provides users with access to a stunning quantity and variety of information. However, the internet lacks an efficient organizing framework to enable users to quickly and logically gather information about specific topics or content specifically of interest to the User.
Numerous available internet search engines enable keyword searches for information, but these suffer from infirmities common to nearly all of them. Most frequently, users must repeatedly refine their searches to locate relevant information, and the information returned from a search is typically voluminous, overly broad, under-inclusive, out-of-date, or irrelevant. As a consequence, users can expend a tremendous amount of time and energy attempting to find highly relevant information regarding specific topics of interest.
Alternatively, special interest groups and discussion groups exist on the internet, where users can post messages and/or images, interactively chat, and ask questions or provide information about topics. However, such content posting is typically static and passive, rather than dynamic and interactive, involving a User uploading an image and waiting for other users to download, view, and post responses to the Content. A posting User is frequently dependent upon search engines to lead other users to the posted Content; a slow and uncertain process. Additionally, the User must expend time and energy to find such special interest and discussion groups, and can ultimately partake in only one or a small number of such groups concurrently. These limitations reduce a User's ability to rapidly gather information and view Content that other Users find relevant to a topic.
In another situation, a User may wish to gather information about products, such as by viewing them, comparing them, discussing their relative benefits and deficiencies with product users, experts, and vendors, and then purchase a selected product on-line. This sequence of activities typically involves visiting numerous websites (e.g., Consumer Reports) for product reviews, vendor websites for product options, product User-group websites for ratings, and other resources. As described above, this process can consume a great deal of time, and to some extent, stifles and frustrates users, transactions, and the pace of e-commerce growth generally.
Yet, over a decade into the internet revolution, no consolidated solution has yet emerged to solve these inefficiencies. Further, the amount of information available by the internet continues to increase at a breakneck pace, compounding the existing inefficiencies and frustrations for those searching for Content-specific information.